Anything related to hi-fi and sound reproduction from past, present, to future. Plus the humanitarian, environmental aspects of A / V consumer electronics manufacture and marketing.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Is Mono Hi-Fi?

Today’s kids who grew up on the Apple i-Pod may balk at the
thought, but are monophonic sound recordings still be considered hi-fi?

By: Ringo Bones

Though not as exciting as finding an authentic Daguerreotype photograph or even a Tintype photograph of Dr. Jose Rizal having a very heated chess mach with Friedrich Nietzsche, back in the hi-fi boom of the Clinton Economic Expansion era of the 1990s, there are no shortage
of jokes about audiophiles who still clung on to the idea that mono is still
better than stereo, a case in point are those hilarious cartoons In The
Absolute Sound by Golliver and Gaughn involving someone named Mr. Mono who runs
the Intergalactic Headquarters of the Singular Ear, but given that there are
rather gorgeous sounding recordings made before the advent of two-channel
stereo, should we audiophiles be all to dismiss any form of monophonic sound –
no matter how tonally gorgeous – as not hi-fi? After all, it wasn’t until well
into 1958 that two-channel stereophonic sound in the home became a reality; and why shouldn't really great sounding - as in realistically spooky sounding - monophonic recordings be dismissed as bona fide audiophile demonstration discs?

I still remember Stereophile magazine’s Michael Fremer’s review
of the Sutherland PH-2000 Phono Preamplifier while playing a mono recording of
Louis Prima’s The Wildest Show At Tahoe in which he quipped “Who needs six
channels of shit when you can have one channel that sounds like this?” almost
mirrors my reaction when I finally can afford my own proper hi-fi rig around
the middle of the 1990s and was curious enough to test out monophonic recordings.
My 1980s era heavy metal cassette collection whose ping-pong left –right,
left-right bouncing of those distorted excruciatingly loud electric guitars may
seem exciting on a boom-box can quickly become tiresome in a proper hi-fi rig,
especially with more recent (as in from the late 1980s) fully stereophonic recordings having a less than stellar sound quality.

And it’s important to forget that quite a number of
recordings with a musicological importance – not just ones known for their
sound quality – were recorded in mono. Elvis Presley’s more intriguing works before
he conscripted by the US Army and shipped off to the Rhineland and the
Sudetenland (are there any Elvis in the Rhineland and Elvis in the Sudetenland
bootleg albums out there?) are all recoded in mono. And let’s not forget those
“big mono” Jazz recording made during the late 1940s and early 1950s – Miles
Davis Bags’ Groove is a perfect example – in which the sound comes right
between the left and right speakers and seems to have a very expansive
sound-stage despite it being a monophonic recording. Ina good hi-fi rig, one
has to listen very hard to identify a good “big mono” recording. An audio-buddy
of mine had been listening Miles Davis Bags’ Groove for 18 months back in the
1990s before he finally knew the truth that it is a monophonic recording. No audiophile in his or her right mind will ever dismiss Miles Davis Bags' Groove - either the vinyl LP or the JVC XRCD pressing - as a bona fide audiophile demo disc. In short,
it seems that sound quality – as in how close it seems it is to the live
musical event – is the main determining factor in determining if the recording
is truly high fidelity, though one’s personal taste and opinion tends to matter
also like I think Count Basie’s best works are recorded in mono.

The iconic mono rock 'n' roll record A Date With Elvis was mainly the result of the "king of rock 'n' roll's" conscription into the US Army back in 1958. After basic training in Texas, Elvis Presley was sent to work as a Jeep driver in Freiburg, West Germany - far from the nearest recording studio or movie lot.